TURN THIS MUTHA OUT! It's the Alternate 1970s Albums Poll on ILX — Results Thread

37. This Heat - This Heat (1979) [125 points, 10 votes]

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The first album is terrific - tape loop experimentation linked in with rock sounds etc - although the murky production and/or mastering lets it down.

― philT, Sunday, June 17, 2001 8:00 PM (8 years ago)

This Heat certainly had things in common with [Can and Pere Ubu] - an attempt to marry songs with improv/experimental moves, an interest in African drumming, the mixture of guitars and synths, etc. I know that a lot of people find Hayward's sub-R. Wyatt singing something of an 'acquired taste' and yes, the politicing can be a bit obv., but I remain a big fan, perhaps because This Heat were a 'gateway' group for me - played on Peel during punk, but (like Wire) also suggesting other approaches/ideas, a way out of the punk orthodoxy.

― Andrew L, Monday, June 18, 2001 8:00 PM (8 years ago)

x-p
i think curtis was the only soul/funk album in my ballot and it was pretty high too. it should at least make the top ten, i guess.

36. T.Rex - The Slider (1972) [127 points, 13 votes]

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Slider. Slider. Slider. Always felt that Warrior had more recognition because it had the hits--"Jeepster," and "Bang a Gong"--which are both slight and annoying. "Mambo Sun" and "Cosmic Dancer" are all-time greats, sure, but Slider never lets up. It's better than almost anything you'd care to throw at it.

― Michael Train, Thursday, July 23, 2009 10:28 PM (5 months ago)

And Slider will break your heart repeatedly. Where does EW ever do that? (With My Les Paul...I may be small, but I enjoy living anyway....) And, if nothing else, Slider is a vastly better title.

― Michael Train, Thursday, July 23, 2009 10:36 PM (5 months ago)

I feel compelled to play The Slider several times a year, while Electric Warrior's not even an annual thing.

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, July 23, 2009 8:26 PM (5 months ago)

35 more to go.

100. ZZ Top - Tres Hombres (1973) [80 points, 7 votes]
99. Milton Nascimento & Lô Borges - Clube de Esquina (1972) [80 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote]
98. Chic - C'est Chic (1978) [80 points, 14 votes]
97. John Lennon - Imagine (1971) [80 points, 15 votes]
96. Patti Smith - Horses (1975) [80 points, 17 votes]
95. Van Halen - Van Halen (1978) [81 points, 6 votes, 1 first place vote]
94. Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac (1975) [81 points, 8 votes]
93. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Cosmo's Factory (1970) [81 points, 11 votes]
92. Blondie - Eat to the Beat (1979) [82 points, 9 votes]
91. Miles Davis - Agharta (1976) [82 points, 10 votes]
90. Ian Dury - New Boots and Panties!! (1977) [83 points, 6 votes]
89. Neu! - Neu! 2 (1973) [83 points, 10 votes]
88. Tom Waits - Closing Time (1973) [84 points, 6 votes]
87. Black Sabbath - Vol. 4 (1972) [85 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote]
86. Hawkwind - Space Ritual (1973) [85 points, 11 votes]
85. Aerosmith - Rocks (1976) [86 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote]
84. Tubeway Army - Replicas (1979) [86 points, 9 votes]
83. Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak (1976) [86 points, 11 votes]
82. The Who - Live at Leeds (1970) [87 points, 6 votes]
81. Comus - First Utterance (1971) [87 points, 9 votes]
80. Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece (1974) [88 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote]
79. Electric Light Orchestra - Out of the Blue (1977) [90 points, 10 votes]
78. Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle (1973) [92 points, 9 votes]
77. Flamin' Groovies - Shake Some Action (1976) [92 points, 10 votes]
76. Pere Ubu - Datapanik in the Year Zero EP (1978) [93 points, 6 votes]
75. ABBA - Arrival (1976) [93 points, 8 votes]
74. David Bowie - Lodger (1979) [93 points, 12 votes]
73. Cluster - Zuckerzeit (1974) [93 points, 14 votes]
72. Pere Ubu - Dub Housing (1978) [94 points, 12 votes]
71. The Rolling Stones - Some Girls (1978) [95 points, 13 votes]
70. Neil Young - Harvest (1972) [96 points, 9 votes]
69. Herbie Hancock - Sextant (1973) [96 points, 12 votes]
68. Stevie Wonder - Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974) [97 points, 10 votes]
67. Throbbing Gristle - 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979) [98 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
(Tie) 65. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) [99 points, 9 votes]
(Tie) 65. Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark (1974) [99 points, 9 votes]
64. The Pop Group - Y (1979) [99 points, 10 votes]
63. Al Green - The Belle Album (1977) [100 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote]
62. Steely Dan - Katy Lied (1975) [100 points, 9 votes]
61. Black Sabbath - Master of Reality (1971) [100 points, 11 votes]
60. Various Artists - No New York (1978) [101 points, 10 votes]
59. The Specials - The Specials (1979) [102 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
58. John Cale - Fear (1974) [104 points, 11 votes]
57. Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson (1971) [106 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
56. King Crimson - Red (1974) [109 points, 12 votes]
55. Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978) [110 points, 12 votes]
54. Funkadelic - One Nation Under a Groove (1978) [110 points, 13 votes]
53. Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975) [111 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote]
52. Willie Nelson - Red Headed Stranger (1975) [111 points, 12 votes]
51. Van Morrison - Moondance (1970) [111 points, 13 votes]
(Tie) 49. The Who - Who's Next (1971) [112 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
(Tie) 49. Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Armed Forces (1979) [112 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
48. David Bowie - Aladdin Sane (1973) [113 points, 11 votes]
47. Harmonia - Musik von Harmonia (1974) [113 points, 13 votes]
46. Cheap Trick - Cheap Trick (1977) [116 points, 9 votes]
(Tie) 44. Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Zuma (1975) [116 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
(Tie) 44. James Brown - The Payback (1973) [116 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
43. Grateful Dead - American Beauty (1970) [119 points, 9 votes]
42. Amon Düül II - Yeti (1970) [120 points, 12 votes]
41. New York Dolls - Too Much Too Soon (1974) [121 points, 4 votes, 2 first place votes]
40. Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs (1970) [121 points, 9 votes]
39. Funkadelic - Free Your Mind... And Your Ass Will Follow (1970) [124 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
38. Miles Davis - Get Up With It (1974) [124 points, 12 votes]
37. This Heat - This Heat (1979) [125 points, 10 votes]
36. T.Rex - The Slider (1972) [127 points, 13 votes]

Thank ya Mr. Fever!

http://www.grudge-match.com/Images/johnnyfever.gif

There still may not be as much representation of certain genres as some people would like, but I think the last 20 or so present a really diverse collection of '70s choons, regardless of how familiar or unfamiliar they may be. Sure, ilxors are the type folks who could pull off a Harmonia album and put on James Brown, but regular folks probably wouldn't own either one.

Bottom third of this poll > middle third of this poll.

Fuck yes, I voted for This Heat & wld have been so sad if they didn't place.

me 2

me 3

not me -1

me 4. it was my #4

I can only imagine the contortions Tuomas's face would go into while listening to the This Heat album.

i didn't but i probably should have.

i have some this heat but not a whole album! it's pretty decent stuff. can we have some more prog now plz. still only one of mine here and it's one i voted for with tactics rather than heartfelt desire in mind

me 5sies

any more today?

Maybe after the football game tonight, but right now I'm getting ready to cook up some burgers on the grill!

I take it you aren't in the middle of a blizzard then.

I'm in Florida (where it's colder than normal, but not snowing at least).

bon appétit!

I didn't think about this much while deciding on my votes, but my ballot breaks down like this, category-wise (and my sense of categories here is shaped by discussion in this thread, so I haven't subdivided pop/rock much except to pull out prog into its own category):

2 funk
1 jazz
5 modern classical (only Music for Airports, which has the most marginal membership in this category, has made it in, and I doubt the rest will appear as high as top 35%)
6 prog
23 rock/pop (one with notable prog tendencies)
3 soul

(one with notable prog tendencies)

Secondhand Daylight? :D

or Rock Bottom? :D

This Heat was my #3

xp
I counted one of those two as flat-out prog

Rock Bottom has no chance of not making this AFAIC.

woooooooo great album

Soft Machine - Third is better obv but who has the patience for a 4-track 75-minute album I ask ya ;-)

mine is like

usa disco/soul/funk 19 [4 placed so far]
modern classical 3 (assuming we're talking p glass/reich)
fela 4
brazil 4
rock 5 [1 so far]

Cool stuff. 12 of mine are here so far, all the boring rock ones. I suck.

only 5 for 40 so far, maybe my ballot was less conventional than i thought, or else ilx is less conventional than people are complaining about

(hatches an almost plausible plan to tell Tuomas that This Heat - "24 Track Loop" was an MTV jungle ident in the mid-90s)
(PS for Tuomas: it was not. at least as far as I know it was not. it is about as close as any Britisher art school types got in the 70s, though)

I kind of thought that Yeti must have a lower score-per-vote than the Cluster or Harmonia albums, but in fact the opposite is true - they have more votes, lower scores. Which is weird to me because when I first got into krauty things Yeti was almost canonical and Cluster/Harmonia were never mentioned, but to me Yeti is pretty patchy and MvH or Zuckerzeit are almost perfect all the way through. But there is no denying "Eye-Shaking King" or "Archangels Thunderbird", so I voted for all three.

Thank you Mr Fever! Digging this so far, looking forward to the rest.

I have been streaming tracks from some of the more unfamiliar albums on grooveshark: Musik von Harmonia, This Heat among others. A poll like this is good for kickstarting explorations into one's musical blindspots if nothing else.

I deliberately didn't try to have quotas - I just tried to honestly pick my favourite 40 records from the list, with the one artist, one album proviso. Looks like I picked 30 Rock/ Pop/ Folk records, 7 soul/ funk, 2 reggae and 1 Brazilian. This doesn't reflect the proportions in my collection, which takes up 7 shelves each with about 350 records: 3 are soul/ RnB/ Hip hop and jazz, 1 is Irish folk, Blues and Latin, 'Easy' and Library and maybe 3 are Rock/ Pop. So is it just that one kind of music fits the album template better?

I kind of thought that Yeti must have a lower score-per-vote than the Cluster or Harmonia albums, but in fact the opposite is true - they have more votes, lower scores. Which is weird to me because when I first got into krauty things Yeti was almost canonical and Cluster/Harmonia were never mentioned

this is weird b.c i wud hav said the xact opposite, but maybe i got into krauty stuff via the more electronic and enoish end

In my mind, krautrock has always had an electronic component that Yeti doesn't have. I don't even really know how to classify Yeti other than "German," because I definitely don't group it in with the likes of Kraftwerk, Cluster, Neu! or whoever else.

(xpost) I think this just means that I am old tbh, in the 90s Harmonia and Cluster were almost forgotten, or at least I read a lot of "hey guyz dig this weird 70s German music" articles about Can or Neu! or maybe Faust if you were lucky that never mentioned them, but yeah

In other Yeti news, I would like to point out that the new vinyl reissue restores "Pale Gallery" to its original 6-minute length for the first time in a long time.

Does anyone know what was going on with the Mystic + Voiceprint + Repertoire Amon Duul 2 CDs?

and that record is solid gold all the way through, boo to whoever dissed those improvs upthread.

Ooh, This Heat! I remember taping their debut Peel session on the night it first aired. Incidentally, Charles Hayward guests on a few tracks on the forthcoming (and excellent) Hot Chip album.

whoah that is great news!!!

the THis HEat Peel Sessions are imo better than the regular LP versions and are available on a CD called Made Available.

35. Tim Buckley - Starsailor (1970) [127 points, 13 votes, 1 first place vote]

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The third greatest record ever made. Deathless. Abused. Misunderstood. Misaccepted. Screaming to seduction. Leon Thomas weds Cathy Berberian.

Gender mirror image of this record: "I'm The One" by Annette Peacock.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, September 19, 2002 10:23 AM (7 years ago)

The greatest possible thing to come out of fusion, or the worst possible thing to come out of folk?

― dleone (dleone), Thursday, September 19, 2002 10:15 AM (7 years ago)

Ok. The story goes a folkie that starts to get a little jazz mixed into the system (see Lorica) takes it completely into another realm that It's All Over Now, Baby Blue or Puff The Magic Dragon wouldn't dare think of. More IMO a free jazz psychedelia record than folk. This is the one that people either seem to think of Buckley as a musical genius or a total dud. Its weird how some of the folks I know who consider themselves to be huge fans have never or are afraid to listen to this record.

― brg30 (brg30), Thursday, September 19, 2002 3:23 PM (7 years ago)

Be very careful if you listen to Starsailor on acid. Seriously.

― Blightersrock (Da ve Segal), Sunday, July 18, 2004 8:59 PM (5 years ago)

34. Funkadelic - Standing on the Verge of Getting it On (1974) [128 points, 9 votes, 1 first place vote]

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Locked in a mortal battle with America... for my favorite first-half-of-the-'70s P-Funk effort. Comparable to Maggot Brain in that the first 2/3 are brilliant ("I'll Stay" is devastating; the title track is one of their best dance songs; "Alice In My Fantasies" is in their hard rock top 3), but it has a better ending ("Jimmy's Got A Little Bit of Bitch In Him" is a hoot and "Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts" is as good as one could hope from a "Maggot Brain" reprise with psych-religious lyrics).

― Stupornaut (natepatrin), Tuesday, March 29, 2005 11:02 AM (4 years ago)

You've got your heavy-ass guitar shit, your weirdo psych-babble, your funkier groove stuff...it's a pretty nice precis of the early-mid Funkadelic sound.

― Zack Richardson (teenagequiet), Monday, October 25, 2004 7:42 PM (5 years ago)

Standing on the Verge - its kinda the apex of their tighter "rock" period (lolz thx Ron Bykowski) and it doesn't have a weak track on it.

― the taint of Macca is strong (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, October 1, 2009 4:26 PM (3 months ago)

I haven't heard that album. I need to!

I haven't either. In fact, my exposure to Funkadelic consists only of Maggot Brain and Free Your Mind. It's long past time for me to be investigating further.

its good rev, way better than maggot brain imo.

where's all the parliament? or was it all buried in the orig 100?

STARSAILOR #1

better than maggot brain!

mothership and funkentelechy (along w/ maggot brain) made the og poll. don't see other parliament albums placing at this point

33. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run (1975) [128 points, 11 votes, 1 first place vote]

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I fucking love Born to Run to death....the fuckin' break into "at nite we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway american dream"....fuck yeah it's over the top drama queen theatrics and god bless it....it's one of those songs i instantly loved as a child when i heard it.....it made things seem bigger and more important than they really were.....Coldplay's "Clocks" is prolly like that for little kids now.

I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE!

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, January 4, 2005 7:16 PM (5 years ago)

"At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines" gives me goose pimples, for real. And since I've given up the ghost of boring anti-bombast punk purism (a phase which lasted me more or less the couple months in 1994 between hearing Ramones for the first time and hearing London Calling for the first time), I've come to appreciate how well-structured the track is, going beyond just verse-chorus-verse to a perfectly-contained mini-rock-opera that stays completely focused and builds to a completely immaculate peak (the one around the 3-minute-mark, right before the "1-2-3-4/the highway's jammed with broken heroes..."). 9 times out of 10 this personally, for me, beats some snotty kid plonking on the same chords for 2:30, muttering about boredom. Beats it with a tire iron.

― What's this place, Biblevania? (natepatrin), Tuesday, January 4, 2005 7:56 PM (5 years ago)

I hadn't listened to this record in a couple of years, but god, it still sounded great. Actually, I kept getting shivers down my spine when it was playing and it had me close to tears a few times (mostly on "Thunder Road" and "Backstreets.") Listening to this today finally settled an ILM debate for me: Music can never affect me quite as much now as it did when I was a teenager. No record I've heard in the last few years, including Loveless, has had as much affect on me as Born to Run did this morning, and I know it's not just because Born to Run is such a great album. This is a record that got to me when I was young and emotionally vulnerable in a way that I'm not anymore, at the age of 32. I still feel music very deeply and appreciate and enjoy a wider range of music than ever, but music doesn’t completely overpower me the way it did when I was 15. Oh well.

Springsteen is still a big classic, by the way, despite all the incredibly corny lines on Born to Run.

― Mark, Wednesday, January 23, 2002 8:00 PM (7 years ago)

That sleeve, I always thought it was some incredibly fat guy he was leaning on (i.e. facing against Bruce)

haha

The breakdown of my ballot is something like this:

American soul/R&B 9
Jazz 12
Funk 3
African funk/soul 3
Brazilian pop & jazz 8
Disco 3
Afro-Cuban 1
Folk 1

So far Sextant is the only album in my ballot that has showed up. (I would've voted for C'est Chic though, but somehow I missed it on the nomination list.) It's beginning to look like only one or two more will place... :(